Sometimes You Just Have a Bad Day

Ugh.

Well, let's start with the good. I woke up in Washington DC after a good night's sleep and got to see Seth, Karen, and their daughter Julia before they left this morning. Julia is adorable (she's two) and I don't think she's scared of me the way that lots of kids are when they first meet me. Then I took a nap.

That was mostly the end of the good. The Bad was really all of my own doing:

So I was going to meet up with one of my former advisees, Tim Meyer, for lunch at Gordon Biersch at 9th and F street, right near the Metro Center station. As I left Seth's place to walk to the Metro station at Forest Glen, I realized that I left my phone and my map at his place, so I walked back to go get them. I was already running late before I turned back, so I decided to drive to the Metro station and park to save a couple of minutes (it's about a 15 minute walk to the station). The lot was full, but I managed to find legal street parking about a quarter mile away. I could have been more decisive in finding the spot - this cost me about 30-60 seconds worth of time (which will become relevant soon).

I got to the Metro station and took the elevator down to the platform. It was 11:46am, and I had told Tim that I'd be there at 12:10pm (I called to tell him I was running late). As the elevator doors were about to open, I prayed to myself, "please let the train to Shady Grove be arriving." The doors opened, and I managed to see the last tail light leave the station on its way to Shady Grove. Next train: 12 minutes.

Well that was unacceptable, so I went out to the parking lot to see if there was a cab there. There wasn't...predictably. However, I walked out to Georgia Ave and managed to find a cab stopped at a red light. The cabbie let me in and I asked him to take me there. It took 30 minutes. Ugh

Finally, I arrived at Gordon Biersch at 12:30pm and had lunch with Tim. That was actually really good - I hadn't seen him in several years. He is doing quite well - he just accepted a teaching position at Georgia University teaching international law (this just happened two days ago!). He, his wife Willow, and their kids Wyatt and Cash will be moving to Athens soon.

After bidding farewell to Tim, I explored the area a little bit and managed to walk to the IRS building. It was quite coincidental given my future profession as an accountant. I managed to get there without even looking!

Around 2pm, I figured that I should start heading out to meet with another one of my former advisees, Sima. She and I were planning to meet at Starbucks at 1401 New York Ave. When I put the address into google maps, it spit out 1401 New York NE which is way out there past Gallaudet University. I knew I should have asked her about it, but I didn't (and I think the street view would have dissuaded me). Anyway, I took the Metro to the Florida/Gallaudet stop and walked through a very pretty Gallaudet campus. (For those of you who don't know, Gallaudet is the only university expressly for deaf students.) I learned about it in Sign Language class at Stanford, but had never been. After walking through the campus, I found myself in an increasingly bad neighborhood... here's the route I took. Lots of doubts swirled in my head as I arrived at a 1401 New York NE that never actually existed. The thing that really pissed me off is that I KNEW IT as I was walking. The voice in my head kept saying "this isn't right. This isn't right. This isn't right," but I just kept walking. Stupid stupid stupid.

After realizing that I was in a bad neighborhood...on foot...with very few public transportation options...I tried to get a cab for a while, but none were stopping. FINALLY (after about 10 minutes), one stopped. Relieved, I hopped in. It was about 3:18pm and I was 18 minutes late. (Plus I didn't have Sima's number.) Just as we got to 1401 New York NW, I hopped out of the cab, left a few bucks for a tip, and started to run across the street. Another guy had just gotten in the cab as I exited and I left in a rush because the light was about to turn green. Halfway across the street, I patted my front pocket where I keep my phone, and NOTHING. I turned quickly and the cab was gone. I ran half a block one direction and half a block in another, but I couldn't find them. OHSHITOHSHITOHSHIT. It was like a scene out of The Game. Extremely frustrated, I walked into Starbucks and Sima wasn't there.

This just wasn't my day. At all.

I actually had to sit on a bench and remind myself that this wasn't the end of the world. I've been through much harder things, but still, I had been sooooo stupid in so many ways. There were about 15 things I could have done today to prevent my losing my phone. Oh, did I mention that I heard something drop in the cab? That was my phone. I should have picked it up, but I thought it was something of the cabbie's.

By the way, I was in such a desperate place where I caught the cab that I didn't catch the name of the cab company NOR did I catch the driver's name. I was useless.

Luckily, there was an AT&T store right next to Starbucks, so I walked in and bought myself a new iPhone 3GS. I had been putting off doing this for quite some time, and now I did it. Not only that, but DC only has a sales tax of 6% compared to San Francisco's 9.50% so I ended up saving a little bit of money. Now I have a phone again but no phone numbers.

Ai ya.

OK, tonight I'm off to have dinner with Irena, Dan, Sharon, Alexis, and Ben. Hopefully I find the restaurant without being a total idiot. I've got an hour and 18 minutes to get there and it's about 5 blocks away. Let's see if I actually make it on time!

By the way, this game called Click Once a Minute actually managed to calm me down a bit. My high score was 27.